As I've already mentioned, my father James (Jim) travelled from Australia to Papua New Guinea circa 1968 to work as a mechanic in that protectorate and trundle around with his failing, dust and fungus-ridden Soviet camera (he was an economical guy, lol), recording whatever took his fancy. Most of these images are of dubious technical quality for the simple reason that the shutter curtain in his crappy camera was falling to pieces; the originals are truly horrible to behold and I take my hat off to the Lovely R and his patient, respectful remediation. As I know little about the groups involved, I'll confine my remarks to personal observation.
You can find the first instalment of this series Here.
You can find the first instalment of this series Here.
ABOVE & BELOW Confluence: observers, participants and regulators captured in the same frame. Even though we've pored over all these images for some time now, it's difficult to judge the precise level of tension that surely must have been a feature of these occasions, so confrontational on every level from physical display to subconscious perception. I suppose there are as many reactions to these scenes as there are individuals to enact and spectate them, but having once resided in a tribal area myself, I can tell you there would have been an edge to all this bonhomie.
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ABOVE Some sort of Native Police parade dress slash band situation, complete with spats, sashes and pith helmets. Ah, colonialism. It's a bitch but you can't fault the wardrobe. As a colonial myself I've always been struck by the arrant otherness of British sartorial tradition. There are few sights on earth more surreal and perplexing than a hundred bubblegum-pink/shiny brown men sweating buckets in full military kit on a 38ºC pre-monsoon afternoon. The spears and totemic devices visible in the background belong to one of the groups in full tribal regalia massed behind them in what must have been a stunning juxtaposition. LEFT & BELOW Speaking of juxtapositions... |
| LEFT My personal favourite of all Dad's images. Asaro mudmen in the ghostly regalia that assisted their escape from certain death when one of their warring parties was routed and forced to hide in a river. After dusk, the party emerged covered in silt and so terrified their enemies that they were able to effect an escape... This popular story seems to be complete bullshit, if the more mundane account I dug up in Scholarspace is anything to go by. In reality, the original mud-daubing is apparently related to pre-colonial girituwai disguise practice, adopted by individual Asaro men intending to conduct raids against neighbouring tribes; it behoved them to do it ninja-styles in order to avoid identification and reprisal. In 1957, an elaborate massed version (as per this picture) was displayed at the inaugural Eastern Highlands Agricultural Show for the first time as an apparently ad hoc expression of Asaro tribal identity and cultural practice. You learn something new every day. |
I love this image; the random guy at bottom left gets me every time, and knowing my dad, he probably waved him into the frame right in the middle of the Asaro routine. Mad skills. They don't teach that at art school.
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